Click to play videoChennai: Another December has arrived in Chennai, ushering with it a season of music and dance and homecoming for many NRI artistes to perform in December Music Festival.
“Over a decade, I've been coming here during this season, year after year. Many occasions, I bring my students with me, family with me, I make it a point to perform at least twice during the season,” says dancer Ramya Ramanarayanan, who runs a school of dance at New Jersey and hasn’t missed any year at the Music Festival.
The NRI musicians and dancers set a big store on performing in the sabhas (gatherings) in Chennai that organise festivals exclusively for the NRIs and give them space to perform.
The membership of one such sabha like the 'Hamsadhwani' has steadily increased to over 3,000 now.
"When we began, it was with just two which turned to eight the next year to twelve the year after that. Then it developed into 30 concerts. Now we find that Hamasadhwani is very popular and we have a global spread," says Founder Secretary of 'Hamsadhwani', R Ramachandran.
It’s not just the performers who are excited, the audience is equally enthusiastic. Roopa Seshadri, an IT consultant in the United states, took to Carnatic music four years ago and since then has been a regular at the festival. Not to perform, just to listen to some mesmerising music.
While many performers from India try for concerts abroad, she says it's a different feeling to see them perform back home.
"Fortunately for me for the past few years, I've been able to get my work done from India itself. Even otherwise, I don't think I'll let my work come in the way something like this. The kind of feel you get in Chennai during the music season, you cannot get it anywhere. I mean it's the music, it's buzz happening around,” says Seshadri.
The December festival is a time for music buffs from across the world to converge in Chennai, meet the same artists, same audience in the same sabhas to create and cherish new experiences.
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